A federal court in Texas has chided the backdoor Obama amnesty initiative that will spare nearly a million illegal immigrants, writing in a ruling that it’s “contrary to congressional mandate.”

The admonishment comes from Judge Reed O’Connor in Dallas, who this week dismissed a lawsuit brought by 10 Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents opposed to implementing Obama’s amnesty, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The initiative allows illegal immigrants 30 and younger to remain in the U.S. and obtain work permits if they entered the country as children (“through no fault of their own,” as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano loves to say).

When the directive was issued to stop deporting this particular group of illegal aliens, the federal officers claimed that they were being forced to violate their required duties set by Congress. Their attorney argued that the ICE agents were being ordered by their superiors to break federal law or face disciplinary action, saying that this is an abuse of authority.

While Judge O’Connor dismissed the suit based on a procedural question, he agreed with some of its major points. For instance, in his seven-page opinion he writes that the agents were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim challenging the directive, which the judge calls “contrary to the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act.” The “Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has implemented a program contrary to congressional mandate,” the ruling says.

This proves that DACA, implemented via executive order by Obama last summer, violates federal law and therefore government agents have in fact been ordered to break the law. This has occurred repeatedly during Obama’s presidency, though the administration kept it largely under wraps rather than make it public like it did with the Rose Garden press conference to announce DACA.

Back in 2010 Texas’ largest newspaper published an exposé about a then-secret DHS initiative that systematically cancelled pending deportations. The remarkable program stunned the legal profession and baffled immigration attorneys who revealed the government bounced their clients’ deportation even when expulsion was virtually guaranteed. It marked the beginning of the president’s stealth amnesty initiative.

Judicial Watch has been a front runner in investigating the Obama administration’s backdoor amnesty program by pursuing DHS records involving “deferred action” or “parole” to suspend removal proceedings against a particular group of individuals. As part of that probe JW obtained documents just a few weeks ago showing that DHS abandoned required background checks, instead adopting costly “lean and lite” procedures to push through a flood of DACA applications.